


Hot Head, Cold Feet

by nire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angry Katara (Avatar), Angst, But starts off pretty Katara-centric, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Eventual Romance, F/M, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated For Violence, Violence, and how!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/pseuds/nire
Summary: After the Fire Nation kills her, Katara gets a second chance at life.
Relationships: Aang & Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 79
Kudos: 133





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to write this fic but my brain spat out a title at me and, according to fic law, a fic writer is legally obligated to write an idea if the aforementioned writer already has a title for it. So... here it is.
> 
> Thank you to Luthien and brynnmck for the beta. Any mistakes left are mine.
> 
> This fic is rated M for the violence. There's no mature sexual content in here. Overall warnings are in the tags, which will be updated when necessary. I will put no-context warnings for each chapter at the notes at the top, and specific in-context warnings at the endnotes. If I miss any, kindly tell me. I'm but a human.
> 
> Content warnings: violence, execution, aftermath of torture

The Fire Nation has decided: Katara of the Water Tribe is to die under the full moon. She would be impressed by the power play if she wasn’t busy being so damn angry.

The execution itself comes as no surprise to her. What else are they going to do? They had tried all methods of torture on her. She has no fingernails left. No toenails either, to think of it. Her legs are swollen and broken. They never got a chance to heal properly, since her first escape attempt. She’d lost a handful of teeth. Her body is a map of burns, a topography of boils and blackened skin. They had gotten nothing out of her except her screams and—when they had expressed frustrations at her uncooperativeness—her insulting laughter.

When they’d told her a few days ago—she’s not sure how many, her mind murky with pain—that she was going to the capital, she’d laughed them away, then cried herself to sleep. She’d been so dehydrated that the tears refused to spill, leaving her eyes stinging. She knew she was going to die. She knew she was more than halfway there, with her wounds not healing and her consciousness slipping more and more. She hated how relieved she was, to know that the end was near. She didn’t want to be broken by the Fire Nation, didn’t want to be like Haru’s father and the other prisoners on that ship, so long ago. She had thought she’d succeeded in that. She hadn’t given her torturers anything, hadn’t betrayed Toph or her brother or her tribe. She hadn’t been broken.

But then she welcomed the news of her impending execution, and right there and then, she knew she had lost the war.

Two guards, each grasping one of her arms, drag her to a place most aptly described as an arena. It’s a long, narrow stage made of stone, with a lit brazier on every corner. Towering far ahead is a gigantic banner bearing the Fire Nation’s insignia. To Katara’s left and right, long rows of spectator seats. They are empty. Only the Fire Lord and his two children wait for her in the center.

So, not a public execution. Maybe they’ll parade her head in the city, after. Proof that the enemy is vanquished. Or maybe not. The Avatar is long dead, after all. Any enemy of the Fire Nation’s will only be a nuisance rather than a threat. What a waste of the full moon. Why kill a waterbender at the height of her hypothetical power if no one witnesses it?

She wishes for Sokka and Toph to lie low, to survive. She knows they’re too kind for that, and she feels another stab of anger.

The clouds part and Yue shines down on them. Katara’s blood burns. Her bending runs strong and furious, but her body is too weak to do anything. She is too weak to fight, too broken to run. Her legs hang limp under her, her feet dragging on the ground uselessly. The guards are impassive, but they’re more careful in transporting her than the ones stationed at her hot, dry, lonely prison. _Those_ guards took great care to jostle her as much as possible, relishing in her suffering.

They reach the center, a few paces in front of the royal family. The guards deposit Katara into a heap, then walk away. How far, Katara doesn’t know. She doesn’t care. She cranes her neck to see the looming figures—the faces of her enemy. The Fire Lord looks at her smugly, his expression mirrored on his daughter’s face. The prince refuses to meet Katara’s gaze. He wears an angry scowl, but that’s not new. Prince Zuko is rarely anything other than angry. She bets his heart is so gnarled and rotten, he still can’t be happy even after he’s won back his father’s favor.

Good. She refuses to be the only one to burn.

“Princess Azula,” the Fire Lord says, “you may begin.”

“Yes, Father,” the princess says, then begins reciting a long list of charges, including ‘treason’, which assumes Katara to be a subject of the Fire Nation and counts her resistance against their colonizing forces an act of rebellion.

Katara only half-listens. She insists on keeping her eyes on the reason all hope is lost, the reason she is here at all: Zuko. He still trains his gaze to the side, exposing the scarred side of his face to her. Once, she had touched the hardened, leathery skin. Had offered to heal it for him.

He had closed his eyes and let her.

“... you are sentenced to death,” Azula says finally.

Zuko turns towards Katara, then, taking slow, measured, inevitable steps. His scowl is unmoving, like a mask in a play. She still refuses to meet her eyes, even as fire erupts from his hand, even as he raises it high over her. She is about to die, and her killer won’t even look her in the eye as he ends her.

“Coward,” Katara hisses.

The fire dies. The hand swings down, smoke still dancing on his skin as he clutches her collar and pulls her upright, or as upright as she can be with legs that cannot stand.

“Say that again,” he demands. His eyes are muddy pools of indeterminate color in the night, his frown casting deep shadows on an already hateful face. She would be afraid if fear was still part of her repertoire of emotions.

But Katara has nothing left to fear, so she laughs, each wheeze scraping her dry throat raw. “Coward,” she repeats. Her voice is reedy and faint. “You can’t even look at me.” She feels her breath leaving her; every inhalation is heavier than the last. Below her, her legs twitch, scrabbling for purchase even though she can’t stand on broken bones.

But he looks at her, now. His eyes roam her face, cataloging every bruise and cut and boil and open wound. She hasn’t seen her own reflection in so long, but sometimes she touches her own face, trying to figure out how she looks.

Not pretty, she knows that much. He seems to agree, with his mouth twisting in a sneer. Behind him, his father says, “Do it, Zuko.”

“Yeah, _Zuko,_ ” Katara gasps. “Kill me already.” Her feet manage to place themselves on the ground, and the moment her weight falls on them, she cries out.

Her executioner flinches. Coward, coward, coward. Her death had been decided the moment he’d turned on her. It doesn’t take much; she doesn’t ask much.

“Come on,” she needles. Her vision is becoming narrower and narrower. “I’m almost th—”

Something thin and cold slips between her ribs. A strangled sound—hers, from her mouth. Her head lolls. The full moon looks her in the eye, unlike him. Yue—

So cold—

Red flares across the sky—

Katara opens her eyes. Gasps for air.

“Katara!”

Sokka?

“Katara, you’re awake!”

Aang?

She’s among the clouds—on Appa, she realizes. The full moon illuminates them in washed out, silvery hues. The air is cold. A little too cold. It’s still winter. Winter? She died in summer.

She died.

Aang and Sokka are looking at her with concerned faces. She suddenly can’t breathe. Her stomach roils. She shoves them away, scrambling to the edge of the saddle, and—ignoring the protests of her boys, Appa, and Momo—leans out to the side and throws up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning (with context): Description of the aftermath of Katara's torture by the Fire Nation, description of Katara's execution by the Fire Nation.
> 
> Yes, this is a Zutara fic. Yes, he did kill her. If you consider that a dealbreaker, then this fic is probably not for you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some murderous thoughts and canon-typical violence ahead.

After washing her mouth, Katara turns to Sokka and asks, “Where are we?”

“We’re back over Earth Kingdom waters,” Sokka says. “You fainted right after we escaped Roku’s temple.”

She frowns, trying to remember. Roku’s temple? But that was… “The winter solstice—”

“Was yesterday. Katara, what happened? Are you hurt? Did the Fire Nation get at you?”

Katara flinches at the last one.

“They did,” Sokka growls—sort of, with his still-breaking voice. Katara would laugh if she wasn’t currently in the process of tearing up. “Aang, we need to go back to the Fire Nation.”

“What?” Aang calls out from Appa’s head. Someone needs to be on the reins, so he returned there as soon as he made sure Katara had water to gargle. “Why?”

“Because I’m gonna kick the ass of whoever hurt—”

Katara tackles him in a hug, sobbing into his shoulder.

“Oh, hey, oh no, Katara—”

“I’m okay,” she says, still sobbing. Sokka feels so very real, all awkward scrawny limbs and the smell of a teenage boy who hasn’t washed himself in days. She missed him. She never knew if he still lived, back—back when she was about to die. And here he is now: whole and healthy and unaware of what’s going to happen.

“Hey, no fair!” Aang exclaims, landing over them both. “I want a hug, too!”

Katara cries harder because Aang _also_ feels real. Small and light and bright like sunshine, with white fur strewn all over his clothes because he always sleeps with animals. _Slept_ with animals. Aang was dead. Aang is not, in the here and now. Is this a dream? She heard once that when people die, they’ll see things like the loved ones they miss. Katara cranes her neck, half-expecting to see her mother wade through the clouds. When no such apparition happens, she ignores the vague pang of dismay.

Sokka and Aang hold her. At first, they ask her questions, but soon enough they realize that she can’t answer. Not yet. So she lets the sobs wrack her body as Sokka strokes her hair and Aang rubs her back, gentle, comforting. Momo slips between their bodies, curling on her lap. Appa makes a mournful sound, and Aang says, “Katara will be fine, buddy,” and they are all quiet but for the sound of wind beating against them.

When the tears subside, Aang goes back to Appa’s reins. Sokka releases Katara, though he leaves one hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She does. But she can’t tell him the truth, not when she doesn’t know what it is. _I died in the future_ is a ridiculous sentence to say even if it’s true. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she says, slowly. “But before I woke up just now, I… went through something horrible.”

“Like a bad dream?” Aang offers.

“Sure. Something like that. We lost to the Fire Nation, and—well, it’s bad.”

Sokka presses the back of his hand to her forehead. “You did have a pretty scary fever last night.”

“Maybe it’s that,” Katara says, reluctant to say more. “Hey Sokka, show me your map.”

Sokka, lover of maps, immediately unrolls his atlas. “What do you wanna see?”

“Where are we going next?” she asks. When Sokka points exactly where she expects it, she feels one step closer to sanity. “Great!” she says, maybe a little too cheerfully.

Sokka looks at her weirdly. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugs. “Why not?” she asks him back, then lies down facing the sky, looking straight at the full moon. It’s been a long time since she could fully lie down like this, unchained, with not a single broken bone in her body. She holds back the tears from springing forth again.

This time, she’ll protect Aang. The world will have its avatar and the Fire Nation will fall. She’ll survive. She’ll kill Zuko first.

* * *

Katara has a plan, though calling it that might be a little too generous. First: she needs to make sure that her ‘past life’ wasn’t, in fact, an elaborate fever dream. She’s pretty sure it isn’t. It feels far too real to be a dream, and lasts for far too long. The memory of a dream would blur around the corners, given a few hours, but not this. Back in winter—now, that’s now—they didn’t, no, they don’t know who Toph is, or Yue. But she remembers them vividly, down to their voices and what became of them. This, Katara is relatively sure, truly happened. Not just a spirit-bestowed vision, either. It _happened_.

But she needs further evidence. And there’s no better way than to just follow what she remembered of this time, as closely as she can, and see if things happen as she predicts them. Not forever, nothing close to that. She intends to make changes in due time, changes to better their chances against the Fire Nation.

But not yet. Now, she’s testing her memory and possibly her sanity. So far, things are going the way she remembers it. They’re currently heading to the right location. This morning, Aang paced around the saddle, worrying about the comet and how he needs to master all four elements by then. Katara offered to teach him some waterbending, because that’s what she’d done last time. Sokka promised to find them a puddle to splash around. All according to the script.

She tries to temper her expectations. She didn’t carry over the wounds and broken bones from her past life; why would she bring her bending too? It’s as much a physical thing as mere knowledge or memory.

Even so, when they finally land at the little waterfall lagoon—“Nice puddle,” Sokka says—she feels like she could cry. The Fire Nation had put her in a prison where the cells were hung on thick chains from the ceiling. The air was dry and hot, and they barely let her drink more than enough to wet her lips. A special prison, designed to contain a waterbender and starve them of what they crave the most.

She had been the only one there. The only waterbender they’d bothered to keep alive.

This ‘puddle’ pulls at her bending. She almost can’t hear the rushing sound of the waterfall, through the drumming in her ear, the pounding of her own pulse. She doesn’t know if she can sense the water so acutely because she’d been so deprived of water when she died, or because her bending _is_ stronger now.

There’s only one way to find out, really.

So they land. Aang offers a branch of foliage for Sokka to use to clean Appa’s foot. Sokka complies without complaint. The first time had been surprising because Sokka always complained. Now, Katara’s surprised because even the way the branch shakes as Sokka takes it from Aang is the same as before.

They stand next to the water, and Katara begins the first lesson.

“The first—uh, the first thing I learned to do was to push and pull the water, like this,” she says, her nervousness making her stutter a little. She shows Aang the movement, just like last time, but she can feel the difference. Her stance is more stable, more precise. As she moves her entire body, rocking in place as though keeping her balance on a skiff, the water responds to this, the wave bigger, more consistent. Katara forces out an encouraging smile at Aang, even though all she wants to do is whoop in joy.

“Like this?” Aang asks.

“Yeah,” Katara says. It’s close enough. Aang’s stance is an airbender’s stance, which isn't wholly unsuited for water when it's in its liquid form. She remembers having to remind Aang to adjust his stance so he could also work with ice, back in the North Pole. Right now, though, she isn't supposed to know this yet. “Hey, I’m bending it already!” he exclaims.

Yep, there it is. He manages just fine, just like last time. No master waterbender advice necessary. Katara tries to summon the same bitterness she felt last time and fails. She’s a master, now. She can feel it even if she’s only made a little wave go back and forth. “Well done!” she says cheerfully. It shouldn’t matter so much what she says in these little talks between them, right?

“Thanks,” he says, dropping the wave. “Now what?”

She shows him how to stream the water—the tendril comes readily to her as if she’d called it by name—and when Aang shows off what he can do with the move, she doesn’t watch. She marvels at the steadiness of her own stream, the way it doesn’t quiver in the air as if on the brink of falling. She spins it around, and around, and around, and finally, she sends it back to the river, gentle and soundless.

“Whoa,” Aang says. “That was awesome.”

“It’s a pretty fun move,” she admits. She wants to do _more_ , but no. She’s supposed to have nothing but the most rudimentary waterbending. Already, she regrets her decision to stick as closely to the script as possible.

“Well, don’t stop now, keep ‘em coming!” Aang exclaims.

Briefly, Katara is tempted to stop the lesson there. Last time, Aang had ended up washing their supplies down the river, and surely that didn’t need to happen? She could stop the lesson here, and she can suggest they go down to the port anyway to shop for additional supplies or something.

But that means they’ll end up shopping for a shorter time, which means they’ll encounter the pirates earlier, and maybe they have one less or one more crew member on board, or maybe they pirates haven’t even made port yet and there goes the rest of her plan, or—whatever. Clearly, she has only one choice.

“Well, I’m kind of trying to master this one other move, but it’s pretty hard,” Katara says. She tells Aang about the big wave, raising her own hands to demonstrate, surprised at the strain she feels. She’s tempted to lift the water all the way just to know what it feels like, just to test how far her innate bending skills can go within this untrained body.

Once more, Katara denies herself, letting the water splash uselessly. She doesn’t even have to fake the dismay, this time.

When Aang manages the big wave on his first try, nearly drowning Sokka and Appa in the process, Katara sighs. She can’t wait until she can stop this charade.

* * *

Katara steals the scroll. Even if it wasn’t necessary to trigger the events that lead to the culmination of the first stage of her plan—thank goodness she doesn’t have to explain this to Sokka yet, because he’s going to think she’s crazy and he might be right—she still would. Even though she can already do the water whip. Probably. She hasn’t tried, yet, but she managed to stream the water just fine earlier, and this is just one step forward from that.

She doesn’t want to get too confident. She doesn’t want to die again.

Anyway, none of those pirates have any right to the waterbending scroll. She doesn’t either, but at least she can claim to be related to someone from the north, coming from the Northern Water Tribe’s sister tribe. Or… whatever. All for the greater good, all part of the grand scheme of things.

So she steals the scroll, and she steals a few less noticeable trinkets from the pirate ship. A little hair ornament. One silk handkerchief from a pile of draped silks and other finery. That particular part of the ship is an explosion of color and gold thread, she knows no one will be the wiser if she takes the thing. All little things, all from places where there’s many of them so they wouldn’t be missed. After this, she’ll sell them and hopefully make up for the money they lost to replenishing their supplies.

She makes a show of asking about the scroll so the pirates know about it, if not the trinkets. As planned, they chase after her and Sokka and Aang. She does little subtle things, a little whip here—turns out she _can_ manage it just fine—and a sheet of ice there, things that Aang and Sokka don't notice because they're too busy running.

They don't know that last time, they got away by the skin of their teeth. They're not supposed to know yet.

Once they’re back at the camp, Sokka throws a fit over her thieving ways. Katara can't even bring herself to care, merely parroting arguments she remembers herself making last time until he throws his hands up and stomps away to get a fire going, leaving her and Aang to practice the water whip.

She does it perfectly. Aang, too, but that part isn't a surprise. She’d intended to fail the water whip and fake a tantrum, but after a whole day of trying not to scream at how uncanny everything is, at once familiar yet slightly different, she cannot bring herself to. The water whip is a comfort, a confirmation: she's still in control.

Despite having mastered the move, however, the final part of the first part of her plan hinges on getting discovered by the pirates and the Fire Nation. So she sneaks out as soon as the boys are out cold, finding her way through the trees until she reaches the river—she chooses a spot a little more downstream than last time, a little further away from the camp—and then…

She practices. Nothing _too_ fancy, since they could find her at any moment and she doesn't want to tip her hand, but she goes through the stances, the basic exercises. Gets herself acclimated to the knowledge of how to properly waterbend and the limitations of her still-untrained muscles. Warms herself up.

It's a beautiful night to kill.

Katara feels the ships disturbing the water before she hears them coming. She drops the water she’s bending in one final splash and readies her stance.

The pirates come through the bushes. She lifts the water—one big wave, not as big as Aang’s but _enough_ —over the riverbank, catching the pirates, taking them under and sending them down the river. With another wave, she unmoors both the pirate ship and the Fire Nation skiff and leaves them to the mercy of the currents. In two quick movements, it is over. When she turns to where her true quarry stands, she finds him agape.

“Were you hoping to save me from the pirates? Poor waterbending girl, helpless and in over her head?” she asks, mocking.

His face—the face of her killer—hardens into a mask not unlike the last time she saw him. He looks… older, somehow, with his hair all shorn off in disgrace. And the ponytail is a little bit ridiculous, isn't it? This is not how she'd remembered him, but from this point on she doesn't need everything to align with her memories.

She's done pretending to experience this for the first time.

“Where’s the Avatar?” he asks harshly.

“Not telling,” Katara says, and sends a water whip his way.

It’s nothing more than a test, really. He’s a prince of the Fire Nation. He’s been practicing his firebending for practically all his life, as his navy raided the Southern Water Tribe time and time again. She kept house for her older brother and increasingly absent father. She mended and cooked and looked after the children. She was never afforded the luxury of his tutors.

It comes to no surprise to her, then, when he deflects the whip easily—not even with his firebending, but with his vambraces. What _is_ surprising is that he’s not sneering or taunting. His eyes widen ever so slightly as his arm moves to block her attack, as if he didn’t just watch her get rid of the pirates _and_ two ships.

Katara’s attack seems to rouse his men, who have been standing uselessly about the riverbank until now. They rush forward to save their prince, only to be taken by the swelling river, their surprised shouts growing distant as the current carries them. The move takes a lot out of her, but the alternative—fighting half a dozen trained firebenders all at once—would have meant certain defeat.

Zuko turns to the river, then to her. “You got stronger,” he says. It sounds like a question.

That, somehow, infuriates her more than anything else. She charges him, both arms sleeved in water, crowding him with one swipe after another, with ice and water and ice as he blocks, sidesteps, parries. He pushes her back with a fireball or two, but he’s not even _trying_.

“Why—aren’t—you— _fighting_?” she snarls in between hits, but he just grits his jaw firmly. Is he biting his own tongue? If yes, he can choke on his own blood and die.

Which is unsatisfying, but she’ll take it. Already, her muscles ache like they did when she’d only just started training with Pakku. This body isn’t used to this much waterbending in such a short period of time, and just this morning she struggled to raise a big wave. She is much better—and yet so much worse. And he’s just as good as ever, as hateful as ever, and she can do nothing.

Her breathing is ragged. Her hair has escaped her braid, sticking cold and damp against her face. She’s so very tired. She should’ve run away with Sokka and Aang and trained until she’d sweated blood, until she could whip her water sharp as a honed scimitar. Instead, she let her anger get the better of her and sought Zuko out. And she found him. And she’s losing to him again.

She looks at him. He maintains his stance, but is otherwise still. He’s barely sweating. He could end her now if he wants to, but he’s not a killer yet. Not now, when it’s still winter, when he is still by his uncle’s side.

He looks back at her, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed, as if she’s a decision to puzzle over.

Against herself, she says, “Please,” and she doesn’t know if she’s begging for her life or her death, only that she’d never begged last time, even in the scant moments before she died.

With a furious roar, he raises a wall of fire and pushes it towards her. She jumps back, once, twice, stumbling to the ground, her head hitting a river stone, her arms crossed in front of her face, her eyes scrunched closed. She grits her teeth, readying herself to be lit ablaze, but—nothing comes.

When she opens her eyes, he is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara comes clean and makes changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating a day early because work has been hell and I would very much like to put this chapter out into the ether. I'm going back to the Friday updates next week.
> 
> As usual, my eternal thanks to my beta-readers brynnmck and Luthien, without whom this fic would be a total mess.
> 
> Content warning: violence, blood, murder, references to war crimes. Detailed warnings at the end notes.

Katara staggers back to the camp to find Sokka and Aang fast asleep, and her anger is stoked anew. This could get them killed. She’s revealed her hand—Zuko now knows that she’s stronger than they’d thought she was. He let her go, tonight, but maybe he’s just going for reinforcements. Maybe he’s finding his men and the ship and his uncle, who was absent just now. Maybe the old man stayed onboard. Maybe she drowned them all.

No, she didn’t. It takes more than this river to drown an entire crew of Fire Nation navy, and she knows the old man’s stronger than he looks.

Last time, he’d been sent to jail—not her jail, but some other jail—for trying to help her and Aang. He’s not beyond reason. Maybe she can try to make contact—

No, he’s very loyal to his nephew, and she just tried to kill said nephew.

Okay, the here and now. The pirates and the navy men probably survived, but neither of them knows where she’s camped. She wasn’t followed. She made sure of it, was extra cautious when she made her way back. It should be safe enough here tonight. They just need to leave as early as possible before anyone comes looking.

What is she supposed to do now? Her plan hinges on killing Zuko. Kill the prince and she’ll be safe. They’ll all be safe. She can train Aang and—no, Zuko’s death would’ve summoned his sister anyway. Not that it matters anymore, now that he’s still alive and well. _Well done on not wasting your second chance at life, Katara. You didn’t even get mom’s necklace back from him._

She exclaims in frustration, throwing herself onto the bedroll.

Aang makes a little yawn. “Katara?”

“Go back to sleep, Aang,” she snaps. “I’m just thinking.”

“Think quieter,” Sokka says, grumbling as he rolls to his side and pushes his pillow against his ear.

“Is everything okay?” Aang asks, ignoring Sokka’s muffled protest. Katara wants to cry. He’s so very gentle, Aang, so very kind. He’ll die again if he stays this soft.

“For now,” she gently says. “Sleep.”

Aang nods and yawns again and mumbles a “g’night,” and Katara is left alone with her swirling thoughts.

* * *

In the end, she gives up on trying to think, sleep, and keep watch at the same time. The bedroll is too soft and too comfortable, it feels _wrong._ Her senses are buzzing with danger and she flinches every time wind ruffles through the trees. She feels better with her hands having something to do, tired as she is, so she tidies up her bedroll, rebraids her hair, and prepares breakfast. It’s the smell of warm porridge that wakes her boys, sending them shambling to the fire. They gratefully accept the offering.

They eat quietly, Sokka and Aang mumbling appreciatively as Katara shovels too-hot porridge into her mouth as if it could warm the chilling fear that crawls through her spine. She finishes her portion and is still terrified, but her stomach is settled and her mind is made.

“Hey, guys?” she starts. When they raise their eyes from the bowl, she continues, “I need to tell you something. It’s about… what happened two days ago when I passed out, and about last night too.”

Sokka and Aang trade a glance. “Ooookay,” Sokka says. “Why does it feel like you’re going to say something crazy?”

“Because”—Katara pauses, sipping from her waterskin—“I guess losing the war, getting killed by the Fire Nation, then waking up give or take half a year before that _is_ crazy.”

Sokka’s looking at her with wide, wide eyes, but it’s Aang who says, “You’re right. That is pretty crazy.” He reaches forward and rests his hand on Katara’s forehead. “You don’t feel feverish to me.”

Katara jerks her head back. “I’m _not._ I’m fine, and I know this happened, okay? I spent all day yesterday doing things exactly as I remembered it and it led me—just as I remembered—to the Fire Nation and the pirates, but I lost to Zuko last night and now he knows I—”

“Katara—”

“—can bend better now, and that means they’ll get serious and—”

“Katara!”

Katara turns to Sokka. “What?!”

“You need to slow down,” Sokka says. “Wait, did you say you lost to Zuko last night?”

Katara closes her eyes and breathes, in, out. “Yes. I did. He could’ve killed me,” she says, leaving the _again_ unsaid, “but he let me go.”

“Killed you?” Sokka reaches to touch her hand, slowly, as if approaching a skittish wolf-seal cub. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just tired. He didn’t—I’m not injured.”

He nods. “Let’s get going, then. We can talk on the way.”

“We should go on Appa,” Katara says. “I know you think he’s the reason the Fire Nation can track us easily, and you’re not wrong, but it’s faster than walking.”

Sokka frowns. “I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re probably thinking it. You thought about it last time.”

He makes a face. “Creepy.”

She shrugs. “Useful, though.”

Sokka watches her, long and hard. “It actually did happen to you, didn’t it? You’re usually not so…”

He trails away, and Katara doesn’t give him time to find whatever word he’s looking for. “Yes, it did,” she says. “Now, let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”

Katara wants to be on Appa’s reins, just so she doesn’t have to look at both Sokka and Aang, but they won’t let her on the basis that she hasn’t slept all night. Sokka offers to steer because Aang already did yesterday. Aang insists that it’s no trouble, and he knows Appa best anyway, which means he’ll be better than Sokka at splitting his focus between steering and listening to Katara.

So. With negotiations over, their packs loaded, Appa and Momo fed, and everyone at their designated places, they take off.

Katara doesn’t speak immediately. She watches the clearing growing smaller and smaller until she can no longer see the wisps of smoke or glowing embers in the campfire. She then turns her gaze to the Mo Ce sea, trying to find Zuko’s ship or the pirates’, but by then the ships at the harbor are nothing but blots against the shimmering water.

She turns to Sokka, and to Aang, who’s sitting with the reins on his lap, but facing the saddle. “Ba Sing Se fell by the end of spring. We tried to prevent that from happening, but we failed.” She pauses, unsure of how much she should reveal. In the end, she settles for the bare minimum; they can ask her if they want to know more. “I was kept in a prison that’s specially designed for waterbenders, except I was the only one there. I think—I’m not sure, because by then the days have started blurring together—it’s not long before the comet that they decided to execute me.”

She wraps her arms around herself, shrinking into the far corner of the saddle. She knows that if any of them tries to touch her, hug her, comfort her, she’ll shatter—and now’s not the time for that.

“They transported me to the Fire Nation capital, and then they killed me in front of the Fire Lord.” She breathes in and out, slow and deep. “And then I woke up. Two days ago.”

“That’s…”

“Crazy, yeah.” Katara squeezes herself tighter. “I know.”

“Maybe it’s a vision,” Aang says. “Maybe it didn’t really happen to you. The spirits showed you the future, just like how Roku told me about the comet! But it hasn’t happened yet, it just feels like it does.”

Katara sighs. Aang would say that, wouldn’t he? That way, she’s not crazy, but she also hasn’t really died and come back to life six months prior. As gently as she can, she says, “I don’t think so, Aang.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because it’s too real. Too detailed.” She closes her eyes. The lack of sleep is catching up with her. “Sokka, map.”

Sokka hands her the map. “How long until we get there?” she says, pointing at where she knows Jet and his freedom fighters are.

Sokka peers at the map. “Two days, probably. Appa will need to rest.”

“Okay.” She settles into the corner, curls herself up, closes her eyes.

“Uh… Katara?” Sokka asks.

“I’ll tell you more tonight at camp,” she says. “I’m tired. Didn’t sleep last night,” she says.

“I know. But why aren’t you lying down?”

She hasn’t slept lying down in weeks. Her jailors liked to torment her whenever they thought she was getting too comfortable, adding a new injury for every good night’s sleep. She was their only entertainment, after all, and happy prisoners were supposedly boring. In the end, it was safest to sleep sitting up, slumped in the least painful arrangement of limbs.

Except Katara’s not in any particular pain but soreness and exhaustion, and the air is pleasantly cool against her face, and last night her recklessness nearly killed her again, and so she needs—it sounds crazy even in her own head—the comfort of familiar discomfort. She remembers the winter days, the first leg of their journeys. How despite the war and hardship they maintained hope, embraced comfort and laughter and joy whenever they could. But if they keep going like this, they’ll lose. She will die. Aang will die. The world will suffer even more than it already does.

And maybe it doesn’t matter if she sleeps lying down or sitting up, but what if it does? What if she takes one little comfort after another and ends up complacent, and they lose again?

“It’s how I usually sleep,” she says. When Sokka doesn’t respond, she sighs and says, “In the prison, I mean.”

“But you’re not in prison anymore,” Aang says.

“Old habits die hard,” Katara says, shrugging. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Aang opens his mouth, then closes it. “Nothing,” he says, all too cheerful. “Have a good sleep!” And then he turns around, finally steering Appa properly.

“Here,” Sokka says, pushing a bundle at her. “You’ll catch a cold sleeping without a blanket.”

She takes the blanket. Wraps it around her. It’s soft and warm and it feels safe. She hates it. She doesn’t want to fall sick in winter, though, so she keeps it. Maybe she’s allowed this one comfort.

* * *

At camp, after she doles out stew for her boys and herself, she tells them about Jet and the freedom fighters.

“They sound cool,” Aang says.

“We thought so, too,” Katara says. “Well, you and I thought so, Aang. Sokka doesn’t like it that Jet’s cooler than he is.”

“Hey,” Sokka protests. “I’m very cool! I grew up on ice! I’m the definition of cool!”

Katara snorts. “Would a cool guy need to yell at his only friend that he’s cool?”

“I have—Aang’s not my only friend!”

“I’m your sister. I don’t count.”

Sokka opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Don’t you two have some water to splash around or something?”

“We haven’t even finished dinner,” Aang points out, his mouth full of half-chewed stew.

“That’s right, we haven’t. And I’m not done telling you about Jet.”

“He’s cool, you probably like-like him, we’re going to help him fight the Fire Nation, and we’re going to be super good at it because you can see the future. There, done,” Sokka says, waving his hand dismissively and nearly knocking Momo off Aang’s shoulder.

“Hey, watch it!” Aang exclaims as Momo skitters to his other shoulder. “Wait, did you say Katara like-likes this guy?”

Katara heaves a sigh. “We’re not going to help Jet. He’s planning to flood an entire village to flush out the Fire Nation troops stationed there, and he doesn’t care about the civilians. We’re going to stop him. Well, you two are, anyway.”

“What about you?” Sokka asks.

“Someone still needs to clean the village.”

“You’re gonna go against an entire village’s worth of Fire Nation garrison alone?” Sokka asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “An occupied village like that wouldn’t have a lot of local men left.” She doesn’t say why. No one asks. “The soldiers usually keep the women to cook and wash for them. So it has to be me, and I’m not letting Aang go anywhere alone.”

“What?” Aang protests. “Why not?”

“Because you’re the Avatar, and if we lose you, we lose everything.” Katara stirs her bowl of stew and looks at the swirling chunks of tuber and tofu as she weighs her next word. Finally, she says, “Ba Sing Se fell because you died, and I couldn’t save you in time.”

Katara remembers the lightning, splitting through the cavern air, raising the fine hairs on her arms. She remembers rushing to Aang, to save him, only to be muzzled by a Dai Li agent’s stone glove, for the crystals cracking and coalescing to imprison her. She remembers screaming as if she herself had died.

“We are not losing you again,” Katara says. She sets aside her bowl of stew. She’s lost her appetite. “And if you’re worried about me, don’t be. I can do more than just a water whip.” Not that it had been remotely enough, last night. It’s a good thing she knows her limitations better now.

“Katara,” Sokka starts, carefully. “What happened last night?”

“I told you what happened last night,” she says with a dismissive wave. When Sokka gives her a look, she sighs and relents. “Look, I wasn’t sure if I was really… from the future. So I had to make sure. I did as I remember myself doing last time, with the pirates, and the scroll, and if it was true—if I was right, the Fire Nation would find me.”

“And they did, didn’t they?” Aang asks.

“Yeah. And the pirates. They really want that scroll, you know.” She raises a hand. “I’m okay. Got rid of the pirates. And the navy men. And their ships. It was… easy. But I miscalculated. I tired myself too early and left myself to Zuko’s mercy.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would you get rid of the navy men, but not Zuko?” Sokka asks, though the way his brow is furrowed and his eyes are downcast, he’s not really asking her. “Unless…”

Katara waits.

“You didn’t want the Fire Nation to find you. You wanted him to find you.” Sokka’s face turns from dawning realization to shock to anger. “What were you thinking?”

Katara presses her lips together, holding back the full story. How she’s been running on fumes and anger and fear. She can’t let him know, though. She needs to be in charge. She needs him and Aang to trust her and believe that she’s not crazy. So she says, “They found me last time, too. It didn’t kill me then.”

“It could’ve killed you last night!”

“It didn’t,” she says. “We can’t all sleep at the same time again. Go and sleep first while Aang and I train, and then I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn.”

Then, before Sokka can formulate a coherent reply, Katara takes Aang by the wrist and drags him to the riverside. He’s got a long way to go.

* * *

Katara pulls up her scarf, obscuring her lower face. She’s dressed in something dark and muddy and very much not Water Tribe. This does nothing to obscure her eyes, but she’s been trying her best to lower her gaze, playing the part of a demure, impoverished village girl.

For two days she’s been blending in in the kitchens, where all the women are. They didn’t ask a lot of questions about where she came from. Soldiers are a hungry bunch, and when they’re hungry, they get handsy. They already consider the village and its buildings their property. It doesn’t take a lot to make them think they have a right over its people, too. So the women cooked and served the soldiers, and when Katara arrived, claiming to be a refugee out of coin and supplies, they told her she could eat and sleep with them as long as she pulled her weight.

And she had, for two whole days. She had watched the soldiers drink and gamble and manhandle the women, and with every minute she had grown more certain of her course of action.

Tonight, Sokka and Aang will dispose of Jet’s explosives. She, on the other hand, will kill every single Fire Nation soldier here. The old man Sokka had met last time, who had turned out to be their healer, she will spare—if only because he’s been secretly providing medicine to the women.

Katara breathes in, out. She checks her waterskins, one on each hip, filled to the brim. She looks at the roomful of women, who sleep hip to shoulder, who have kept each other as safely as they can, including her. She looks at the copper mirror placed near the exit, at her own face. Someone’s left their rouge there. Unthinking, Katara dips two fingers in the pot, then smears the waxy red over her eyes, her forehead. A crude imitation of her tribe’s war paint, in the wrong color besides, but it comforts her to bring something of these women’s with her tonight.

She ducks out before she worries about the women all over again. She can’t help them by fretting over their sleeping bodies.

“Hey there.”

The voice is slick and warm and she knows _it_ , the way it raises her hackles, the way it makes her shiver. She whips out water from both skins, sending some to freeze his legs to the ground and keeping the rest as a glove, her arm up in a preemptive block. “Jet,” she says as if spitting out poison.

His eyes widen a little, his upper body rocking back a little, but his smirk is otherwise unchanged. He takes the wheat stalk he’s been chewing out of his mouth and says, as he looks at her up and down in a way that had once made her heart race, “Sokka’s sister, right? Nice getup.”

Katara doesn’t have time for his games. She looks around the empty road, then to the houses where the soldiers are. The lanterns are still lit, but the sounds are dying down. It’s late—two hours after midnight, give or take, and she’d taken out as much water as she can from their wines, making the alcohol stronger. They’re probably all asleep now, unaware, but there are still sentries posted at the village gates. He’s endangering her plans.

“Relax,” Jet says. “Longshot’s doing perimeter. He took care of the sentries earlier.”

She doesn’t need to ask him how he knew she was in the village. He must’ve followed Aang and Sokka last night when they'd met her to go over the plans one last time, when they'd tried to dissuade her from following through on her plans all alone, when she’d said that she was only going to target the army’s supplies. It had been only half a lie. She’d planned to sabotage the troops, maybe take out their leader if needed, but after two days of recon, she’d decided that her initial plans would not be enough, not even close. She would need to clean the village as she would clean the entrails of a seal, cleanly and thoroughly.

Still, she’d lied to Sokka and Aang last night. Sokka had seemed doubtful, though he’d said nothing. Aang, however, had swallowed the lies whole.

If Jet had been eavesdropping on their meeting, he knew what Sokka and Aang were supposed to do, and yet he’s here and not there, stopping them from wrecking his supplies. “What did you do to Aang and Sokka?”

“They’re a little tied up at the moment. Whoa, calm down,” he says, when she sends the water in her hand to wrap around her throat, “they’re unharmed. I’m not stupid enough to kill the Avatar and his friend.”

“I don’t know, it’s pretty stupid that you think flooding a village makes you a good guy.”

“Well, that’s before I met you,” he says warmly. The bastard. He sidles up closer to her and cocks up a smile and she feels her dinner curdle in her stomach. “I have to say, I’m impressed. Having those two take down my operation, leaving you to assassinate all the soldiers in one night? It’s a bold plan. One that you can’t really do on your own.”

“If I needed help, I would’ve asked my brother or Aang,” she says. “Not you.”

Jet smiles wider. “You know they’d stop you. That’s why you lied to them; they’re soft. Hey, no offense. Some of mine are, too. There’s a reason I only came with Longshot.” He opens his arms as if waiting for an embrace. “So, Katara. That’s your name, right? I don’t know how you know about me or my plans, but they’ve changed. I’m all yours, now.”

Katara considers him for two seconds, then releases him from her water, sending it back to their skins. “Don’t get cute.” She walks towards the buildings with the lit lanterns. “And don’t get in my way.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I bet you can,” she mutters under her breath.

The first thing she does when she enters the room is to douse every single lantern, sending small amounts of water to freeze over the wicks. Jet doesn’t complain. He’s an ass and a bastard, but he actually can take care of himself in a fight. Not that this is much of a fight. The men are mostly dead to the world, and it’s not going to be difficult to nudge them into a more permanent death.

This is the culmination of her plans for the last three days. It’s a necessary thing. These soldiers have hurt and killed innocents. She owes the women of this village, who’d taken her in with compassion, to go through and kill these men.

And yet, Katara’s feet are rooted to the ground.

At the end of the room, a burly soldier Katara thought was sleeping sluggishly looks up and around, blinking owlishly in the dark. Then, he turns to the doorway, his face an arrangement of shadows in the dark, his eyes squinting as if he’s thinking hard.

She knows his face. She knows the smell of his breath, the way his hand feels clasped tight around her upper arm, the way he says words that would make any one of the women quiver in fear.

Jet takes a step towards that man, but Katara’s quicker. She sends a sliver of water—not unlike the way she’d sliced through the steel beams of the Fire Nation’s giant drill in Ba Sing Se—and as the man cranes his neck, she slashes his throat cleanly once, then twice as she pulls the water back to her, now slightly murky even in the darkness. The man slumps and gurgles, and finally, he falls limp.

Katara holds the murky water over her hand, lifting it up under the moonlight. The man’s blood swirls inside, the redness diffusing like tea being steeped.

“Never done that before, have you?” Jet asks, and she nearly drops the water.

“No,” she admits.

“It gets easier,” he says. She thinks he’s trying to be reassuring.

Katara steps to the man closest to the doorway, dead to the world with grains of rice still sticking to his whiskers. “It’s already easy,” she says, and if her hand trembles as she kills this one, Jet doesn’t say anything.

* * *

After, Katara and Jet make their way back to his base, stopping by at the geysers. She strips to her bindings, bundling up her bloody mud-colored clothes and sending them down the river. Then, she washes up with the hot water, the heat scalding against her winter-chilled skin. She finds a porous river stone and sloughs off the blood and mud, then bends a small strand of water to work under her fingernails. The makeup goes away, too, the wax melting off her skin, leaving only her bare face.

She drains her waterskins, then cools some river water until it’s almost freezing to rinse the inside. The blood will stain if she uses hot water.

Belatedly, she realizes that she’ll need a new waterskin. One that she can drink from, one that’s never touched the blood of her enemies.

Well. She’ll worry about that later. For now, she retrieves the clothes she’d hidden under a rock at the base of a tree. It’s her regular clothes, now, the clothes of Katara of the Water Tribe, blue and unbloodied.

Once she’s herself again, she turns to Jet. He’s chosen to rinse the blood off of him by dunking himself, fully clothed, in the river. It works, sort of. He’s soaking wet, but the blood is mostly gone. She could dry him. She chooses not to.

“So,” he drawls, stepping back onto the river bank and dripping water all the way, “what now?”

A bird starts chirping, then, except it’s too long and complex to be any bird Katara knows about. She looks to the heavy canopy of trees, where moonlight almost doesn’t touch the ground. Longshot has never revealed himself to her, but she knows the boy quietly leads the way, hopping from tree to tree, keeping watch, and ready to warn them if anything’s in the way.

And right now, something’s in the way. Or coming their way. She doesn’t know, but from the way Jet’s face changes she knows it’s something good—for her, anyway. He starts whistling back a reply, but the sound is interrupted by Appa, calling for her as he lands by the river bank and throws Jet to the ground with a flap of his tail.

“Come on, Katara!” Aang says, his voice urgent and tense, and she doesn’t need asking twice. She takes Sokka’s outstretched arm, hoisting herself onto the saddle. An arrow whizzes past her, sinking into Appa’s fur. Appa roars.

“Appa, yip yip!” Katara yells, even though she’s not on the reins, but Appa complies. He kicks off the ground, leaving Jet half-sitting, looking up at her with an expression she can’t decipher, his friends rushing forward to help her, a few more arrows whizzing past them.

She wanted to warn Jet off. Tell him that if he ever does anything that hurts the innocent, either directly or as a result of his own warpath, she would know. There wasn’t time for that, though, not when the freedom fighters were shooting at them.

Appa will need healing, later. The arrow doesn’t seem too deep, and he’s flying just fine. Hopefully, they’ll make it until the sun is up.

“Are you two okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Aang says. He adds, “They knew about our plan,” Aang says.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Sokka frowns. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “We should’ve been more careful, sure, but it’s not just your fault.”

“I should’ve known Jet would follow you both,” she says. “I was too busy thinking what his plan was, I forgot about how we could change them.”

“Will he be a problem?” Sokka asks. “We poured his blasting jelly down the river, but…”

“It has to be enough,” Katara says, settling into her corner of the saddle. “He doesn’t have a reason to flood the village anymore, now that the Fire Nation is out.” It sounds inadequate, even to her own ears. She doesn’t like the way Jet looks at her, the way he seems to think she has the right ideas. He doesn’t really have the best judgment, not from her experience, but he’d happily massacred a group of sleeping soldiers with her.

No, she can’t second-guess herself. Those were enemy soldiers, who’d culled the local men and kept the terrified women under their thumbs. Those men deserved to die. What difference does it make, if they die in their sleep or on the front lines?

Besides, isn’t it good for Jet to see that there’s another way, a different way, to fight this war? A way that doesn’t sacrifice his own people?

It’s good. She’s doing good. She’s changing things for the better.

Sokka gives her her blanket, and as Katara wraps it around her, she notices a blot of dried blood, still clinging under one fingernail. She runs her thumbnail along the narrow gap between skin and nail, flicks the blood off, and goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed content warning: the Fire Nation troops stationed at the village near Jet's camp are war criminals who have abused the civilians of that village. This is mentioned and referenced, but not depicted on-page in any detail. Katara kills them all and there's some depiction of blood resulting from those murders.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara charges into the storm. It doesn't go the way she expected it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my love and thanks to my betas, as always.
> 
> Content warning: violence (on par with the previous chapter), nightmare sequences

“It gets easier,” Jet says. His breath washes over her neck as he presses his front to her back, holding her wrists, guiding her movements. A long time ago, he’d shown her how he held his hook swords, just like this. She hadn’t known what he truly was, back then. She’d only known his easy smiles, his flattery. She’d never killed before.

“It’s already easy,” Katara answers, almost breathlessly.

The man she’s about to kill opens his eyes and raises his head. “It still gets easier,” he reassures her. A grain of rice falls from his chin to the table as he talks. Katara moves her hand—or maybe Jet moves it for her—and her murky red water shoots forward, opening the man’s throat. The blood sprays onto her.

Another man wakes up and says to her, “See, that wasn’t so difficult,” just before he dies, again by her water.

So she and Jet move through the room, killing one soldier after another, but not before they wake up and encourage her.

“You can do it.”

“It’s for the best.”

And, when she thinks she’s gotten everyone, the first one she killed raises his head. “Come on,” he rasps, “I’m almost th—”

Her ice is a spike that pushes through his soft middle, and he is quiet.

She’s by the river, now. She can’t remember how she got here, only that now she’s washing up, the scrubbing rote and familiar. When was the last time she tried to wash blood off her skin? She’s never killed before. She’s killed dozens of men. It was easy. Was it supposed to be easy from the start?

The blood won’t wash off. She sees herself on the water, blood smeared on the left side of her face. The reflection vanishes, distorted by ripples, and it’s _his_ face staring at her, now.

“You got stronger,” her killer says.

With a small gasp and a start, she wakes. Zuko’s voice lingers in her head, warping itself into a sort of compliment. He’d been surprised, when he’d said it to her; she’d washed his crew down the river, after all.

But not in the dream. In the dream, he sounded almost admiring. It was almost… pleasant.

Ugh.

She slumps, wincing at the way the log she’s leaning on presses against her back. She’d chosen it because it _was_ supposed to be uncomfortable, to keep her awake, but if she’d known the discomfort was going to lull her, she would’ve leaned on Appa instead. Maybe his softness would have kept her awake and left her with no aches.

But no, she had to choose the log, and now tension pulls at her neck and shoulders, while her legs, folded under her, feel like they’re being pricked by a thousand needles. She pushes herself up on her half-asleep feet, stretching her limbs, feeling her joints pop. Then, she listens. No incoming footsteps or any sign that they’ve been found. Only the occasional wind rustling through the trees and the snoring of her brother.

A sigh escapes her. She’s lucky, this time, but all it takes is one surprise, one lapse of caution. She slaps both hands on her cheeks. _Look alive._

Momo chitters, raising his head and watching her with unblinking eyes.

“I’m okay, Momo,” she says.

The lemur lowers his head back onto Aang’s chest, but before he could close his eyes, Aang starts mumbling something.

Huh. She’s not the only one having nightmares tonight. She goes to Aang, watches the way his brow furrows and his muttering becomes more frenetic, though less comprehensible.

Is he dreaming about his past, too? Aang hasn’t told them yet how he’d come to be in the iceberg, but Katara had heard it from him. She’d given him some platitude about how it had been for the best, how the people had needed him right now instead of a hundred years before, and she had meant it, and it had helped him.

Now, she’s not so sure anymore. She’d seen a world that had lost its avatar when they’d needed him the most. She’d seen a world that had fallen into ruin. She’d been part of that ruin, too. She’d been brought back, given a second chance, but that doesn’t unmake what she’d experienced. It’s now indelible in her, the fear and the anger.

Most times, she chooses anger. It burns outwards, keeps her safe. Fear corrodes her from the inside, like poison, and she only lets it in on quiet nights like this.

What would she say now, if Aang asks her about it? Would she spout the same reassuring platitudes and hope he doesn’t notice that she doesn’t really mean it? Would he ask her how she could go back, and would she try to help him find a way? In a world where the Avatar had never vanished, Kya and Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe might not have married, might not have existed. Or maybe they would have existed, still, and married, still, and have two children named Sokka and Katara, and Kya never died.

Would Katara advise Aang to beg the spirits to send him a hundred years back, so that her mother could have another chance to live?

Aang moans again. Sweat beads on his temples. His teeth are grinding together. She doesn’t have answers for the questions he might have, but she could ease his pains.

Katara gathers water on both her palms, resting them on either side of his forehead. His energy is all tangled up inside, jittery and uneven. Carefully, with her healing, she smooths it out. Eases up the ripples in his chakra. Gently pushes and pulls the healing energy until his breathing follows, in and out, slow and steady. His brow unfurrows. His sleeptalking ceases.

Katara pulls away, her job done, and Momo makes a little trill. When she reaches out to pet him, he scampers up her arm and perches on her shoulder.

“Wanna keep watch with me?”

He purrs.

“Thanks.”

* * *

The fishing town doesn’t have much in the way of coins, but Katara manages to convince one of the fishermen to take the silver hair ornament she stole from the pirates in exchange for dried fish; a week’s worth of grain, dried herbs, and spices; and a handful of copper pieces as change. With that money, she rents a room for the night and a stable for Appa. The last couple of coins, she uses to buy a dried gourd to contain her drinking water. Her two waterskins stay on either side of her hips, while a strap keeps the gourd slung on her back.

“Where’d you get the money for all this?” Aang asks as they enter the inn. The room is a simple one and not very big, but there’s a brazier with glowing coals at the center, the futons are thick and comfortable, and the harbor-facing window provides a nice enough view.

Katara grins. “What, did you think a scroll is all I stole from the pirates?”

Aang giggles. “Good thinking.”

Sokka opens his mouth. Closes it. “You know what, yeah. Well done on the high-risk trading, Katara.”

“I told you, it’s useful to know the future.” She passed by an arguing old couple when she was shopping at the marina. The old man was as stubborn as he had been last time about the storm. She ignores them, and instead, she sends a sliver of water to slash their sails. Nothing too damaging; it’ll be all stitched up and ready to use once more when the storm has passed.

Sokka looks out their north-facing window, at the gathering clouds on the horizon. “It sure is.” He doesn’t know that last time, he’d gone fishing with the old man and had nearly died in the storm. Just another thing she withholds from him, along with how she died, and what—or more specifically who—waits for him at the North Pole. He’ll find out, eventually, but for now, she allows herself to feel content, knowing her brother is safe.

Aang watches the stormclouds for a moment, then said, “Hey, Katara?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened last time?”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Aang,” Katara says, even though she can guess what Aang has in mind.

“Well…” Aang starts. Does he remember the nightmare she’d chased away for him? She knows the storm brings echoes to his own past. She knows what had brought him a hundred years into the future. Katara can’t control the weather, much as it would make her life easier, nor can she erase Aang’s memories.

She waits as Aang hesitates and rubs his neck. He’s already touchy; the wrong words could send him flying into the clouds regardless of the rumbling thunder. If he tells her about his past, he needs to make the decision himself.

“What, did you also have a ‘bad dream’ like Katara?” Sokka asks.

“Sokka…” Katara warns.

“What? He could! He’s the Avatar. Weird things happen to him.”

Aang deflates. Shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Anyway, what’s for lunch?”

* * *

“So,” Jet says, stepping out of the red river, dripping blood that’s neither his nor hers, “what now?”

A loud thud. Earth juts out from where Jet was standing. A Dai Li agent stands next to her with an extended fist. Jet is launched into the air, his eyes open and his mouth agape, as if he’s only realized that he’s going to die.

Katara isn’t surprised. She’s seen this before.

Jet falls into the river, sinks under its opaque surface. Blood splashes on her, thin and cold.

She blinks awake. There’s no blood on her face, only rainwater. The wind has thrown the window panes open. Katara gets up to her knees and scoots over to the window. She can barely see anything through the heavy rain, but something dark and ship-sharp—a shape she’d been taught to fear all her life, a shape that has followed her and Sokka and Aang until now—blots the harbor.

They’re here. _He_ is here.

Katara presses her fingertips to the empty hollow of her clavicle, where the pendant of her mother’s necklace used to sit. They’d taken the necklace from her when they’d put her in prison, and—infuriatingly, shamefully—she’d gotten used to not wearing anything around her neck. Sometimes, she forgets that Zuko has her necklace. But not now, not when he’s so close.

She closes the window slowly, carefully. The bolt creaks as she slides it into place, but Sokka’s snore continues uninterrupted, and Aang only rolls around and scratches his belly. They’d gorged themselves on fruits for lunch, and the storm had lulled them to sleep mid-afternoon.

It was supposed to be a quiet day. She’d arranged for a warm room, for their food, and she’d thought she could spend a day without looking over her shoulder.

But he’s here. Her killer has followed her through the storm and he’s now anchored paces away from where they are, and with him is her mother’s necklace.

It’s possible that he doesn’t know that they’re here. Maybe this is a mere coincidence. Maybe he just decided to look for a safe harbor instead of challenging the stormy sea.

No, it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s here to capture Aang, he would have to wait until the sky clears again. There’s probably nothing more useless than a firebender in a typhoon. He’s at a disadvantage, right now. He and his crew are probably hunkering over in their ship, playing the waiting game.

Now is the perfect time to strike. With so much water around her, she’s only a full moon away from invincibility. It’s too good an opportunity to pass by.

Carefully, Katara sneaks out of the room. Her boys don’t stir, even as she closes the door behind her. She leans her forehead on the door, closing her eyes. A wish, or a prayer, to whatever spirit carried her here.

Then, she leaves. She coats herself in rainwater, freezes some around her chest and arms like crude armor. She runs, trusting her feet not to slip, trusting in her own abilities. It’s been a week since she’d died, and she’s made that week count. Her body is more accustomed to long stretches of bending and exercise, though still not as strong as she’d been once. It’s enough. With the storm on her back, it will be enough.

Water wraps around her when she reaches the harbor, lifting her up to the deck. The sound of her landing is drowned by a rumble of thunder. For a moment, she stands there, catching her breath. She’s now boarded an enemy ship. She has no plan but to get her necklace back and kill everyone she finds. She can’t afford mercy. Zuko’s crew stands between her and the safety of his death, and if they live, she might die.

She used to be kinder than this. But then, she had never died before.

She gathers more water around her, readying herself to bust the door open in one strong torrent—but then it opens, and there stands Zuko’s uncle.

“You must be cold, standing in the rain like that,” he calls out in a warm, familiar voice. “Would you like a cup of hot tea?”

Katara freezes, the water in her grasp feebly splashing onto the deck. She fixes her stance. Closes her fist.

“You don’t want to fight me, Master Katara,” he says evenly. “Nor could you win, if you try.”

“I have a storm,” she says.

“Storms bring lightning with them,” he answers. A threat wrapped in a fact wrapped in something that sounds like a proverb.

She remembers the last lightning she’d ever witnessed, and she knows she’s lost the match before it even begins. She always associated lightning with Azula, not Iroh, but who’s to say the old man cannot, in fact, create it, or tap it from the sky and aim it straight at her?

“Come,” he says. “Dry yourself. I promise you will leave the ship unharmed, afterward.”

The old man is honorable. She knows as much. He’d tried to help her and Aang, last time. He’d failed, but then so had she. His word means something, unlike his nephew’s.

Katara drops her stance. Takes one tentative step, then another. Iroh steps aside, extending a hand as a host would to an honored guest. She enters the doorway, feels the warmth of the air inside, the smell of metal and steam. She shudders, then pulls water from her hair and clothes, and throws it onto the deck. She doesn’t want to, not really. She’s safer with the water around her. But he’s welcoming her into his ship, and he doesn’t ask her to leave her waterskins outside, and if push comes to shove, she’ll bend the tea he’s offering her out of its pot.

Still, when Katara enters the gullet of her enemy’s ship, she feels as if it’s only the word of an old man that protects her. An old man who, despite his gentle manners and honorable conduct, is still of the Fire Nation, still a firebender, and had once been feared by the world.

He leads her not to his quarters, or the common area of the crew, but the command room where the ship’s wheel is perched under wide windows. They run into no one else; he’s perhaps arranged that, for her. There’s a low pai sho table, framed by several threadbare red cushions. A small brazier, a bronze kettle perched atop it, and a set of teaware made of delicate porcelain.

Everything is red or black. Red lights on black walls, red porcelain on black lacquered wood. The old man, too, is in red and black. His hair is all gray, but his eyes are the gold of Firebenders. Gentle, though. Like how his nephew’s eyes had been, once, in a cave of crystals.

“You knew I was coming,” she says, gesturing at the tea set.

“I did not, actually. I was only fetching my tea things from this room when I saw you running this way.” He gestures at the windows, which face the port. The storm rages outside, dark and impenetrable. Would she be able to pull the water to break the glass? He continues, “It would be rude of me to turn a guest away in the middle of a typhoon. Please, sit.”

She does, choosing a spot that faces the door, with the window—and the storm—behind her back. He doesn’t comment on it, but he leaves the door ajar before calmly sitting down opposite her.

“Do you play, Master Katara?” he asks, extracting a drawstring bag full of what she assumes to be pai sho tiles.

She shakes her head. He puts the bag away, looking a little dejected. She blurts out, “Why did you call me Master Katara?”

“Is that not what you should be called? Have you not mastered your element?”

Katara falls silent. He’s still the enemy, and the enemy knows her true power. She’s lost the advantage of being underestimated, having washed it down the river along with the Fire Nation skiff last week. Still, there’s something about his matter-of-fact acknowledgment of her skill that—despite her best efforts—flatters her.

He pours her a cup of tea, setting it in front of her. She takes it, cradles it between her palms. It’s warm and reassuring and she is terrified. The scent of jasmine wafts up. He’d had a teashop in Ba Sing Se. The Jasmine Dragon. The whole shop had smelled like this. She’d run away before she could have a taste. She’d run through the entire upper ring, into the Royal Palace, into the lap of the fake Kyoshi Warriors that had been Azula and her minions all along.

That teashop had been the beginning of the end. What would happen, she wonders, if she had just walked in and ordered tea like any other customer? She’d assumed that both uncle and nephew were infiltrating Ba Sing Se, part of the Fire Nation’s plan, but Azula and the Dai Li had thrown Zuko into the cave where they’d been keeping her.

But then, what does it matter if he hadn’t been plotting to take down Ba Sing Se? She’d trusted him, and he’d betrayed her. Was it not worse that he'd genuinely turned away from her, that he had considered the good side and found it lacking?

“Is jasmine not to your taste?” Iroh asks. “I had a particularly lovely batch of oolong, but unfortunately I’ve run out just this morning.”

“Sorry, I had some things on my mind,” Katara says, feeling somewhat chagrined. She shouldn’t apologize to the enemy. She hadn't apologized to any of the drunk soldiers she'd killed. Katara sips the tea and hates that she likes it. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”

“It is my pleasure,” he says, smiling. “Would you like to talk about your troubles?”

_He’s joking, right?_ “No.”

He inclines his head. “Very well.”

They drink their tea in a silence that’s almost companionable. Despite herself, the warmth of the tea calms her nerves. He won’t try to hurt her, right now. She has the impression that he has no interest in the war, in fact. She couldn’t remember if he'd ever raised a hand to actively fight Aang or any of his friends, in the times she’d encountered him before she died. He’d tried to protect the moon spirit, in the Spirit Oasis, and fought his own countrymen in the process.

And of course, in Ba Sing Se, he’d worked with Aang to find both her and Zuko.

He’s staring into his cup, probably thinking about his own problems. No—most likely just one problem, in the shape of an angry, entitled, bald-ponytailed boy. That’s one thing she has in common with Iroh, then, though she wonders how he could be so loyal to Zuko. The prince had betrayed Iroh, too, that day. She wondered if—in the future she’d left behind—the old man had lived. She would never know.

Eventually, Iroh looks up to look at her, and he is careful when he asks, “Would you indulge an old man and listen to a story, Master Katara?”

“A story?” she asks him back, wary.

“Have you ever wondered how the crown prince of the Fire Nation got a burn scar on his own face?”

Probably too quickly, she says, “He lost his honor and got banished.” She looks out the window, into the storm. “He told me as much.”

“Then you know?”

_Yes_ , she wants to lie. She doesn’t want to hear this story, not the way Iroh offers it, voice heavy and eyes solemn, like it was a tragedy—like he was a tragedy. So she wants to lie, but her mouth betrays her and says, “Know what?”

“That it was his own father who branded him, even as he begged for forgiveness.” Something must flash across her face, because he sets his cup down on the table and says, “You did not.”

And then he tells her. About Zuko, younger than she is now, begging to attend his father’s war meeting. About Zuko, speaking out to defend his own people. About Zuko, refusing to fight his father, begging for forgiveness.

About the burn, the banishment, the ship that is one century too old to be fit for a prince, the hunt that everyone deemed to be impossible until Katara found Aang in an iceberg.

Katara doesn’t want to feel bad for Zuko, of all people. He is the enemy, and he’d lowered her guard with one sob story already before he'd turned against her. She’d lost everything to the Fire Nation. She’d lost her family, lost her life. She’d been tortured—sometimes for information, sometimes for sport—by people who’d served his family.

He is the enemy and he doesn’t deserve her pity or compassion. And yet.

That the Fire Nation is cruel even to its own subjects is not surprising to her. She’d always assumed Zuko—the crown prince, the face of the enemy—to be part of that cruelty, but not like this.

What is it like, she wonders, to be scarred and humiliated and cast away by one’s own family?

“Before we found you at the South Pole, he’d resigned himself to a life of banishment. It was the Avatar who gave him hope,” Iroh says, closing his story.

“Aang is our hope, too,” Katara snaps. “But of course Zuko thinks he’s entitled to him, just as the Fire Nation thinks it’s entitled to the world.” Her hands clutch the edge of the table, her knuckles pale with strain.

Iroh says, slowly and carefully, “Zuko is convinced that capturing the Avatar is the only way he could regain his honor—”

“And you agree with him?”

Something ripples, quick and almost imperceptible, across Iroh’s expression. Still, he continues as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “—and yet this morning, before I could say anything about a storm, he suggested that we find a safe harbor.”

Katara’s blood runs cold. So Zuko _does_ know they’re there. She'd changed things that night she tried to kill him. She'd tipped him off that she’s mastered waterbending, then she'd convinced Sokka to fly instead of walk to their next stop, which makes them easier to track. She didn’t change things for the better. She’s made herself—and Sokka, and Aang—a bigger target.

Is this a trap? Did he put his uncle up to distract her while he goes off to kidnap Aang? No wonder she didn’t see anyone else on the ship. A storm is a perfect time to mount a surprise attack. The rain obscures anything, and the target is sure to stay put.

After all, isn’t that how she got here?

Katara pushes herself up in haste. Her cup tips over, spilling the tea on the checkered table before it rolls to the side and stops shy of the edge. Her hands are clenched so tight, they’re trembling. She walks towards the door.

“My nephew in his cabin right now. I believe he’s terrified of you,” Iroh says, as calmly as he would observe the quality of his tea leaves.

She stops. Turns to Iroh. “What?”

“It is not my place to tell you if you should or should not hate Zuko, nor is it mine to let you into his mind. I can only tell you what made him the young man he is now, and that your last encounter with him has left him shaken.” He finishes his tea and reaches across the table to set her cup straight. “And that we are only here for a safe harbor. Would you like a refill?”

Is he lying? Have all his words been a lie, or only some? She'd thought he was honorable, but how far does his honor go when matched against the love he holds for his nephew?

A part of her longs to slice into the ship as she would slice open the gut of a fish, clean the entrails out, separate the meat from the offal—but she knows she has no time. If it is an ambush, if the tea and the stories and the kind old man have been nothing but a diversion, then she’s already diverted for far too long.

“No, thank you,” she says. “I have to go.”

“I understand,” he says. “Allow me to walk you out.”

He walks her to the door that opens to the deck. The storm has stopped raging, leaving behind a gentle drizzle. She half-expects him to strike, but he merely bows at her.

“Goodbye, Master Katara.”

“Thanks for the tea,” she answers. She feels silly, saying that, but it’s all she can manage with her mind full of questions whose answers she doesn’t want to hear and her heart thundering in her chest, making her dizzy with fears.

Without waiting for Iroh’s reply, Katara leaps off the deck and starts running.

* * *

A knock on Zuko’s cabin door. “She’s left the ship, Prince Zuko.”

Zuko breathes in. Out. In front of him, a row of candles burns brighter, then dimmer. “Thank you, Uncle. The storm?”

“It has mostly passed, but the captain informed me it’s wiser to wait for another two hours before we depart.”

“All right,” Zuko answers. In, out. He pretends that his exhalations aren’t shaky, that he doesn’t want to yell at his crew to leave immediately, safety be damned.

“Will you take dinner here or with the crew?” Uncle asks gently. Uncle has always been gentle, but lately, he’s treated Zuko as if he’s made of glass. Perhaps he is, but if Uncle thinks he could save Zuko from breaking, he’s far too late.

Zuko stands up and extinguishes the candles in front of him with a gesture. He opens his door. “Actually, Uncle… I was wondering if you could give me some advice.”

Uncle’s face darkens. Zuko understands. He rarely, if ever, asks Uncle for advice, and so this would be another one of his departures from the norm. First, he started treating his crew with respect. Then, he shied away from hunting the Avatar. And now, he’s asking for advice, so plainly and sincerely, without having to lash out in anger first.

But it’s only natural that Zuko wants the guidance of his uncle. After all, not following Uncle’s advice had killed him before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting to post this chapter for _weeks_. Some of you have guessed from the get-go that Zuko also time-travelled back, and you are right! Here he is. We'll see more of his POV in the coming chapters, too.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey north.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind me, just going to slip this update before 2020 officially ends. Happy new year, all!

“Come _on,_ Katara, you’re burning up,” Aang pleads. He’s begging, both of his hands pressed in front of him almost like he’s praying.

“I don’t—” she coughs, each heave like nails raking the inside of her throat, “—care. You’re not going out there alone!”

Sokka shoves her gourd at her. “And I’m not letting you wait here alone.”

Katara rolls her eyes, trying not to wince when that makes her head hurt more. “Oh, please, if this is because I snuck out—”

“Twice,” Sokka adds. “You snuck out twice, both times to go fight the Fire Nation, and both times you got back all panicky and stuff.”

“Ugh, shut up,” Katara says, rolling her eyes and affecting mild annoyance. She still hasn’t told them about what Iroh had told her, about how Zuko has supposedly changed, and she doesn’t want to get into that now. “Besides, it’s not like I can do anything right now! And trust me, it’s okay. Last time, Aang just got us these frozen wood frogs to suck on, and we’re all good after that.” Her words spill faster and faster, and at the end of it, she coughs again, harsh and loud.

Sokka and Aang look at Katara, then at each other. Outside, the wind roars menacingly.

“It’s only to the top of the mountain,” Aang says.

“And the wind is too dangerous for me, but you’re an airbender,” Sokka adds.

“And Katara’s delirious—”

“I’m not, the cure _is_ frogs!”

“—so you better stay here and keep watch of her,” Aang finishes, completely ignoring her.

So. There’s no stopping him, then. She’ll just be here—useless, infirm—and he’ll be out there alone. Truly alone. Not even Appa or Momo to keep him company. There’s only one last thing she can do. She says, “Be careful.” Reaches out a hand to clasp his. “Please, Aang, for me.”

Aang laughs nervously, blushing. Katara feels a little bad for using his crush on her to her own end, but she also remembers very little of what had happened last time. She knows Aang had taken a very long time to come back. She knows Aang had given her and Sokka some frozen wood frogs to suck—she will never forget the way it had melted and wriggled slimily in her mouth, and that’s how she knows it’s not part of her fever dream. And—most frustratingly—she knows Aang had been a bit downcast for the following few days, though he had never really told her why.

Why hadn’t she pushed Aang to tell her?

“I’ll be okay, Katara,” Aang promises, and then he takes off, leaving a trail of puffing dust in his wake.

Katara sighs, slumping against a moldy wall. This is the same ruins. She’s having the same cold as last time. She can’t remember the date, but she’s pretty sure it’s about the same day as last time, too. The only difference is that she’s the only one who’s sick, because she’s the only one who’d gone out in the storm.

“I don’t like this,” she tells Sokka, probably the dozenth time in the last hour.

“I know,” Sokka says. He wets a rag and puts it on her forehead. It’s pleasantly cool; Katara’s eyelids immediately flutter closed. Sokka folds up her sleeping bag, tucking it behind her back to provide padding against the hard, moist wall. She’s thankful that he doesn’t try to get her to sleep lying down. He continues, “You know you can’t mother-hen the Avatar forever, right? Eventually, he’ll have to get all glowy and fight the Fire Lord and save the world.”

Katara makes a non-committal sound.

“Look, he died in Ba Sing Se, right? That means he’ll be fine today.”

“It’s not that simple,” she protests, but she’s tired and sick and her throat hurts and she can’t argue with Sokka without admitting that she doesn't, in fact, know everything. He doesn’t call her paranoid, and neither does Aang, but she knows they’re _thinking_ it.

Another cough wracks her body. Sokka helps her drink some water from her gourd, then drapes a blanket over her legs. “Stop fussing,” she whines.

“I’m worried about you, okay? You’ve been…”

“Hm?”

“Nothing. Go get some sleep, Katara.” As she opens her mouth, he cocks a smile and says, “I know, I know. I’ll keep watch.”

Katara can’t sleep. Her head is pounding, and her eyelids are hot, and her coughs are violent, and her nose is clogged, and she keeps wondering what’s going on with Aang. So she doesn’t sleep, not really. She closes her eyes and sort of drifts in and out of consciousness, accompanied by the sound of Sokka’s knife whittling a piece of wood into—something. The scraping is almost melodic.

It keeps going, and their fire crackles, and the wind outside whooshes, but here she’s warm and a cool damp cloth is on her forehead, and Appa is snoring gently...

“Katara, wake up!” Aang says.

Did she fall asleep? Weird. Katara opens her eyes, and before she could collect herself, Aang sticks something frozen and frog-shaped in her mouth. “What?” she asks, but it comes out as _mmph?_

“You’re right,” Aang says, grinning widely. “The cure _is_ frogs. Wish the herbalist had told me that before I tried to steal her cat’s dinner, though.”

The sky is still dark outside. Last time, Aang hadn’t returned until the next morning. He’s _early._

“Did you get into any trouble?” Sokka asks Aang. Katara could kiss Sokka’s cheek for that, except she has a frog in her mouth.

Aang fidgets a little with the cuffs of his sleeves, then, “Uh… I guess? Some guys were shooting arrows at me when I was getting the frog—”

“What?” Katara exclaims, launching the half-thawed frog out of her mouth and onto her legs. “What guys?” she demands, before shoving the frog back in her mouth, thawed side out.

“I’m fine! This guy—he’s wearing this scary mask, but I’m pretty sure he’s human and not a spirit—he helped me escape the arrows and got some extra frogs for me too!” Aang offers a frog to Sokka. “Want one?”

Sokka looks at the frog as if he’s actually considering it. “No, thanks.”

Aang shrugs and pockets the frog again. “Anyway, I’m fine, see? I’m not followed, either. And now, Katara’s gonna get better from sucking on some frogs!”

“What happened to the guy who helped you?” Sokka asks.

“I dunno. He took me to the woods, where there’s plenty of cover, and when I was looking around, he was just… gone.” Aang’s stomach rumbles. “I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

Dinner is partially bruised fruits, spiced jook, and dried fish. The jook—supposedly—tastes a little off. Katara can’t tell, with her nose too congested to taste anything, but Sokka and Aang make increasingly horrified faces with every round of seasoning before they finally give up.

Nothing happens when they eat dinner, nor when they get ready to sleep. Sokka and Aang agree to take turns keeping watch, and that Katara should rest and recuperate, and maybe she would like to lie down tonight?

Katara shakes her head. “I’m good.” She hasn’t slept lying down in more than a week, now. She now wakes up with stiff shoulders and an even stiffer neck, but it’s nothing she can’t fix with a little healing when no one’s looking—even _that_ is a luxury, one she could not have back in prison.

She closes her eyes. After the frog, her head is no longer pounding and her fever has broken. She could sleep, probably. But she doesn’t know what to do with her hands—folded or resting on her knees or on her sides—and her stomach roils with unease, and when she finally sleeps, she dreams of a flash of lightning and Aang’s body falling to the ground, fast and heavy. Not like an airbender’s. Not like Aang.

* * *

Zuko perches atop of the ruins, watching.

He hasn’t moved for hours. Among the Avatar’s party, only the waterbender actually keeps watch properly. The other two always make an attempt at it, but only feebly. They’ll yawn, then fall asleep, or their attention will wander.

Zuko knows. He’s been watching them for a couple of days now.

And last night, the waterbender had fallen sick. A few miles away, Zhao had been promoted to Admiral. The entire armed forces of Pohuai Stronghold had fallen under his command, including the Yuyan Archers. Zuko had managed to help the Avatar escape the archers, but Zhao or his men could have tracked the Avatar and found him—and his friends—fast asleep.

So, Zuko keeps watch. Nothing had happened, to his relief. Now, he just needs to wait until they leave on their air bison before he can go back to his own ship and catch some much-needed sleep.

The girl is now hauling packs and bedrolls and a pewter pot outside. She seems healthy. Healthier, anyway. Every now and then wind breezes by and she sneezes, but she doesn’t seem sick otherwise. She’s definitely well enough to boss around the boys as they pack up their camp.

They’ve gotten most of their things on the air bison, and now they’re just standing by the beast, talking and gesturing. Her brother unfurls a map and they’re huddling around it. She points at a spot and says something too low for Zuko to hear. Her brother wrinkles his nose and says something back. She shrugs, saying something else, and the brother rolls the map with a resigned sigh.

And then, she smiles at him, and he smiles back, and the Avatar says something that makes them both chuckle.

They get on the bison, the Water Tribe boy at the reins. They don’t look especially hurried. That’s good. Zuko had taken a gamble last night, by showing himself to the Avatar. The boy had seen his face, last time. Had known who the Blue Spirit was. Zuko had no way to know if the Avatar had ever told the waterbender about him.

Last night, the Avatar had told his friends about the masked man who’d helped him. The waterbender had showed no recognition in the way she’d frowned. Her eyes had been serious, though, and concerned, and they were at odds with the ridiculousness of a frog’s butt sticking out of her mouth. Still, she hadn’t screamed and made them all leave in the dead of night, and Zuko had known that he was in the clear.

They still haven’t taken off. The water tribe boy is sprawled on top of the bison’s head, arms outstretched as he scratches it behind its ears. On the saddle, the Avatar shows her a waterbending trick. She claps her hands and laughs, and for a moment, she looks young. No, she is young. He forgets that, sometimes, forgets that she’s probably around his and Azula’s age. He’s young too, or he should be. His childhood feels like a lifetime ago—and it is.

Zuko doesn’t know her. Not like this, warm and gentle. She’d screamed at him and tried to kill him—futilely. She’d boarded his ship in the middle of a storm. She’d laughed in the face of her torturers—Azula had told him that with an almost impressed expression, and Zuko had pretended to be unperturbed by the realization that the girl had been tortured.

That fateful night, they’d dragged the girl to him, and she’d taunted Zuko to kill her.

And he had.

He has the dagger with him, inside his boot, pressed against his right leg. _Never give up without a fight._

Had Zuko fought enough, or had he given up too early? Is that why the spirits had sent him back: more fighting?

Zuko watches the girl he’d killed—the girl he’d betrayed, the girl who’d offered to help him—fly away with her friends. Then she turns her head, and she sees him.

Her eyes are wide and aghast and her lips part—the beginnings of a yell, maybe? Zuko doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know. He scrambles back into the shadows of the broken pillars, his face hot under his mask.

He allows himself a moment to calm himself down before he scales down the ruins and returns to his ship. He has an Avatar to tail.

* * *

Aunt Wu doesn’t recognize them more than last time, but when she turns Katara’s hand over and peers at the lines on her palm, she gasps.

“You have been here before,” the old woman says, her eyes wide and amazed.

Somehow, Katara knows she doesn’t mean _here_ in the village, but _here_ in the now. “You can tell?”

“Your life line”—she runs a finger over the line that curves around the base of Katara’s thumb—“is bisected, here. It looks almost as if it stops, and starts again, only it starts before the first line ends, you see?”

Katara does see. She can’t remember if that line has always been like that on her palm, and wonders if everyone with a line like that has died and then woken up again, or if there’s more to the art. “You didn’t say anything like that, last time.”

“I can only see what is shown to me,” Aunt Wu says, smiling a little ruefully. She peers at Katara’s palm again. “It must have hurt a great deal.”

“It didn’t,” Katara finds herself saying. Dying hadn’t hurt. It doesn’t make sense, of course. How could it not have hurt?

“Not the death, girl. The betrayal.”

Katara jerks her hand away from Aunt Wu, pressing her palm to her chest so she can’t see it anymore.

“I am sorry,” Aunt Wu says. “I can tell you about the man you’ll marry, but you’re not here for a reading, are you?”

Katara feels anger bubbling in her chest, and she clamps her jaw shut to keep it contained. Last time, she had begged Aunt Wu to tell her everything about everything, overstaying her welcome and then some. None of Aunt Wu’s fortunes back then had told her about her death. Only frivolous things, like the weather or what fruit she should eat or her love life. “Not really, no,” she says. “The volcano is erupting.”

Aunt Wu pales. “Ah. I see.”

“The clouds will tell you that the village will be safe. So you can choose—would you believe the clouds, or would you believe my life line?”

Katara stands up. Bows to Aunt Wu, because she’s not raised without manners. And then, she leaves the room before the fortune-teller could tell her something that won’t come true.

* * *

Zuko shifts on the embroidered cushion, uncomfortable. A white-haired man in black had accosted him in his very comfortable, very shadowed alley, requesting him to meet the illustrious Aunt Wu.

The man had had the bearing of a dignified royal seneschal, which had only made the whole thing more outrageous.

“You don’t need to be nervous,” Aunt Wu says, gently. “I only like to greet every traveler who passes by.”

Zuko sweats under his mask and clothes. The room is warm, even in winter.

She takes a bowl of animal bones from a stand and holds it out to him. “Go on, pick one,” she says, as lightly as she would offer some snacks to a guest.

A proper guest, of course, never turns down his host’s offer of hospitality, lest he offend her. He hesitates and she shakes the bowl, dislodging a small bone that’s teetering on the edge of the bowl. He catches it, and when he moves to put it back, she laughs.

“Oh no, no. Some choices, you can’t unmake.” She gestures at the fire. “Throw it into the fire, please.”

Zuko does.

The fortuneteller peers at it, and when the bone cracks in the heat, her face falls. “Oh, child. You’ve gone through so much suffering.” She takes a metal tong and fishes the bone out, placing it on a bronze plate, before peering even closer. “You have a long fight ahead of you,” she says. “And it will only end when you die.”

Zuko stands.

“Don’t look for death,” she warns him. “You’ll know when the time comes, but not until then.”

He wants anything except to stay and listen to her more, but his feet are rooted to the floor. He finds himself saying, “I’ve already died. I know how it works.” The Blue Spirit doesn't speak. Has never spoken. But it is Zuko's voice, scraped raw out of his throat, that betrays him.

She frowns, but instead of asking him what he meant, or commenting on this lifelong fight he’s supposed to have, she says, “You’ll marry, too.”

“What?”

“It’s right there,” she says, gesturing at the cracked bone that’s about the size of his toe, as if it’s obvious. “And isn’t that what young people usually want to hear from their fortunes?”

But Zuko hadn’t wanted to hear about his future. He’d planned to wait until the Avatar and his friends left, then he would follow them. He doesn’t need to know that his life will be full of strife and struggle—he’d been subjected to Uncle’s spiritual destiny talk both before and after his death.

This has been useless. The prediction that he will marry is ridiculous. Why would he decide to share his life with someone else, if it’s going filled with a fight that only ends when he dies?

So Zuko bows stiffly, the way a dissatisfied guest would, and leaves.

When he gets back on his ship, his Uncle asks, “How was your day, Prince Zuko?”

He clenches his jaw, then releases it. Shrugs his shoulders, careful to look careless. “Predictable,” he says, truthfully enough.

He knows, in the back of his mind, that it would do him good if he tells Uncle about the fortuneteller’s prediction. Uncle would be able to make heads or tails of the cryptic messages. Uncle also would rib Zuko about his future wife.

Yeah. Uncle doesn’t need to know. It’s nothing new, anyway.

* * *

“Again.” Around them are trees with scarred barks, numbers etched into their trunks and numerous slashes all around. “And remember to freeze just before contact.”

Aang groans. “Do I have to?” he whines. “We’ve been at it for hours!”

“You’re still hesitating every time you freeze or melt your water,” Katara says. “Because you’re still using the airbending stances.”

“They work just fine,” he says. “Remember when I made that big wave the first time you taught me waterbending? And look”—he twirls the blob of water and it bursts into steam—“I can do that!”

“Not bad,” Sokka says from on top of Appa’s belly. “Now you can make the clouds look like fluffy animals.”

Aang’s eyes go wide. “You’re right! I can! Hey Katara—”

“No.”

His face crumples and the water turns liquid again, sloshing into the ground. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll go find some berries for dinner.”

“Sokka can do that. _You_ need to stay and practice.” To Sokka, she says, “And stop distracting him. You know how important it is for Aang to master waterbending.”

Sokka raises a tentative hand. “Hey, Katara?”

“What?”

“Look, I know you hate it when I say this,” he says. “But maybe you—”

“Sokka, I swear—”

“—should calm down?”

Katara growls, slinging her water to hit the numbered trees with speed and fury, then turns to Aang. “There, I did it for you. Go ahead and find berries if you want.”

Aang’s face crumples. “Fine,” he snaps, but his shoulders are slumped as he walks away.

Sokka slides down from Appa’s belly. “Katara—”

“I know,” she says. “I should be nicer to Aang.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he says. When she glares at him, he raises both hands in front of him. “Okay, yeah, maybe a little. But I was going to ask if everything’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” she grits out.

“Yeah, obviously. That’s why you just yelled at the twelve-year-old monk who’s also the destined savior of the world.”

She gives him a look. He raises his hand higher.

“Okay, okay, you’re fine. So why are you so...” He bares his teeth and makes a face. In a shrill voice that’s probably supposed to be an impression of her, he goes, “Grr!” And then, in his normal voice, “More than you usually are?”

She shrugs. Turns away from him to start collecting the twigs that’s fallen from the abused trees.

He follows, helping her pick up the twigs. He’s changed, too. No one says it, but Katara notices. Last time, he’d still tried to be the man of their little group, the leader, just because he'd been older and a boy. But now, stupid jokes aside, he watches her warily like he had in the year after their mom died. Katara had fallen into her mom’s too-big shoes back then, helping Gran-gran with the cooking, feeding Dad and Sokka, mending their clothes, doing all she could so she didn’t have to sit down alone and quietly, because she’d known she would have cried.

Sokka had been sad, too, but he’d watched over her and made sure she didn't forget her gloves, made sure she didn't trip and fall on when helping Gran-gran serve dinner. For a whole year, they’d stopped the hair-pulling and the petty fights.

That he’s now doing the same to her makes her angry, somehow. She’s not a helpless little girl anymore. She’s done things he never has. Between the two of them, she’s the blooded warrior, now. She’s the one who’s looked death in the eye.

But she’s tired, she’s always tired now, so she lets him help her gather firewood. For a moment, that’s all he does, but as is usually the case with Sokka, he eventually ruins it by opening his mouth.

“You know, Aang’s been progressing really fast with his waterbending,” Sokka says. When she doesn’t answer, he continues, “Last time he didn’t even get that good before we got to the North Pole.”

“He still got killed, didn’t he?”

“Not before we get to Ba Sing Se. And that’s after we stayed at the North Pole so you both could learn waterbending, right?” He says it like it’s a question, but he knows it’s true. “What’s the hurry?”

Katara breathes in. Out. What _isn’t_ the hurry? And more importantly, what can she tell him? Nothing. It’s bad enough that she has to change the future, but not so much that it becomes so unrecognizable and hence unknowable to her. She can’t tell Sokka and Aang things that might not even happen because she’d changed some things. “I’ll tell you when we’re near the North Pole.”

“No,” Sokka says. “It’s not just your war. It’s mine, too. Tell me.”

“They’re going to kill the moon spirit,” Katara says eventually, and it is like a dam is broken. “The Fire Nation is going to go to the Northern Water Tribe and kill the moon spirit. The moon and the sea—Tui and La—they’ve crossed over and now they live in our world, not the Spirit World, and that means—” Katara’s mouth is dry. She remembers the moment it had happened, the moment her bending had disappeared. “Waterbending comes from the moon, you know.”

Sokka puts a hand on her shoulder. Somehow, that’s all it takes for the tears to spring forth.

“I know where Dad is,” she finally admits. “Last time, we met Bato, and he offered to take us to Dad. But we decided to push north so Aang could find a master.”

Sokka looks at her with a solemn sort of understanding. “We’re not going to meet Dad, are we?”

“No,” Katara says. “Not Bato, either. I think—I think that’s only going to invite danger to them.” She touches the empty hollow of her clavicle. “Zuko has my necklace, and he tracked me with it last time. I don’t think we should risk it.”

“And if we hurry north, we can warn them and have them get ready for the Fire Nation.”

“Yeah.” Katara gives Sokka a reassuring smile, wiping the tears from her face. “We can.” It’s not that simple. The Northern Water Tribe isn’t going to believe them easily, nor can they do much to staunch the attack. Their knowledge of the Fire Nation navy is outdated by decades. Their society is frozen in time. Their women benders are unskilled at fighting, which leaves them half as strong as they could be.

And then, of course, there’s the question of Yue. Sokka will love her again. Katara knows that much. Some destinies are immutable, and somehow this—of all the knowledge she has of what might come to pass—is one she’s sure of. What she isn’t sure, however, is if she could save Yue this time, or more importantly, if she should. Even if Katara could prevent Tui from being killed, thus saving Yue, the princess will still owe a debt to the spirit, and there’s no telling when such a debt will be collected.

Is it wise to interfere with the spirits’ plans?

Katara will try anyway, for her brother.

As if sensing the thoughts rippling her mind, Sokka asks, “Did we at least win?”

“You know we didn’t.”

“Not at Ba Sing Se. At the North Pole.”

They’re back at the camp. Katara drops the twigs, then bends the water off of them. Wet firewood means smoke, and they can’t afford smoke. It hurts her muscles, the way the water inside each branch resists her bending, but she manages some, and then a little more.

She coats her hand with the water and soothes her straining muscles with her healing. “Not without cost.”

He doesn’t ask for more. She’s glad for that.

When Aang returns, they both welcome the berries with wide smiles. Katara apologizes for her loss of temper. Sokka eats a handful of them at once and compliments Aang profusely on his foraging skills.

And even though it’s Aang’s war as much as it is theirs, if not more, neither Katara nor Sokka tell him about what awaits them in the Northern Water Tribe.

* * *

“Are you sure this is the best course of action, Prince Zuko?”

Zuko looks at the abbey, its windows dark, its courtyard quiet. He isn’t sure, either, and yet—

He looks at the girl’s necklace, the engraved waves glinting under the moonlight. “It’s our only way into the North Pole.” Uncle’s gaze falls heavy on him; Zuko closes his fist over the pendant and shoves it into his pocket.

Uncle sighs. “Then let us make our introductions.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Say hi to me on [tumblr](https://nire-the-mithridatist.tumblr.com/) if you want to.


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